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jordanbrown16

Nuclear weapons are a sin, says Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - 1 views

www.thenational.ae/...s-irans-ayatollah-ali-khamenei

Islam Iran Nuclear sin

shared by jordanbrown16 on 16 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • jordanbrown16 on 16 Apr 15
     
    In 2012, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons, claiming that "holding these arms is a sin as well as useless, harmful and dangerous". Why atomic weaponry is considered a religious sin in the Islamic culture.
diamond03

Egypt receives 300 recommendations in UN human rights review - Daily News Egypt - 0 views

www.dailynewsegypt.com/...dations-un-human-rights-review

egypt human human rights

shared by diamond03 on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Egypt has been provide
  • with 300 recommendations by the United Nations Human Rights Council
  • recommendations relating to the controversial Protest and NGO Laws, media freedoms, freedom of association, the use of the death penalty, and women’s rights.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Egypt received 165 recommendations following its first review in 2010.
  • Seven Egyptian NGOs refused to participate in the UN UPR, citing a fear of reprisals by the Egyptian government.
  • in line with provisions set out in the constitution and “international norms”.
  • 20 recommendations that dealt with the status of civil society organisations in Egypt and called for a revision of the current law
  • 13 times among the 300 recommendations, with calls to amend the law and “bring it in line with international standards
  • Egypt was urged to ratify international conventions on the death penalty.
  • no international consensus on the death penalty
  • Iceland read “Ensure thorough, independent and impartial investigations into the mass killings in [Rabaa Al-Adaweya] Square in 2013 and hold the perpetrators accountable
  • ies” still have death as a punishment within their criminal justice systems.
  • 50 countr
  • The US also recommended that Egypt “release those detained solely for exercising rights to freedom of expression or for membership in a political group, and ensure remaining detainees full fair trial guarantees on an individual level”.
  • included recommendations to tackle corruption, human trafficking, the promotion of human rights, and investment in education for young people.
  • UN human rights representatives
  • not to participate in the review.
  • decided
  • “the appalling deterioration in the state of human rights in Egypt”.
  • “reconsider its policies and orientation before Egypt slides into an abyss of unremitting terrorism and political violence”.
  • Egypt has until March 2015 to respond to the recommendations
  • diamond03 on 10 Nov 14
     
    Egypt received 300 recommendation to review their human rights. The list also stated they wanted to tackle corruption, human trafficking, and human rights. Egypt has until March 2015 to respond. 
allieggg

Mapping Libya's armed groups - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...lained-201452293619773132.html

libya armed groups middle east Revolution recontruction war militias

shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Haftar accuses Congress of allowing "terrorists" to flourish in Libya and has vowed to "wipe them out", gaining support from much of the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. Other militias have lined up to oppose him, insisting his attacks amount to a "coup".
  • 1. National Army
  • National Army is a nationalist armed group controlled by Khalifa Haftar, rather than Libya’s national army.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • re-formed to help fight in the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011.
  • composed of non-Islamist fighters and former soldiers
  • Haftar used it to launch Operation Libyan Dignity on May 16, saying his mission was to dissolve the General National Congress, which he labelled Islamist, and to destroy "terrorists" he said Congress had allowed to establish bases in Libya.
  • 2. Regular forces
  • small army and air force have mostly defected to Haftar. Libya’s armed forces fought on both Gaddafi and the rebel side in the 2011 uprising. Since then, the army has been rebuilding, with most of its units in training.
  • fighting a tit-for-tat battle against Islamist militias for more than a year.
  • 3. Zintan
  • Zintan's militias are the second most powerful armed force in Libya, after Misrata, and based in the Nafusa mountains 144km southwest of Tripoli.
  • Zintan formed one of the three fronts in the uprising and by the end of that uprising, Zintan brigades surged into Tripoli, with several maintaining bases in the city and holding the international airport.
  • regard themselves as opponents of both Congress and Islamists.
  • On May 18, two days after Hiftar’s forces attacked Benghazi, two Zintan militias stormed the national congress building in Tripoli.
  • 1. LROR 
  • Libyan Revolutionary Operations Room was formed in 2013 as the headquarters of the Libya Shield, an alliance of pro-Congress militias.
  • accused by opponents of being Islamist,
  • LROR led a powerful Shield force to Tripoli last year to defend Congress.
  • 3. Misrata
  • With strong affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party, LROR will have much to lose if Haftar takes power.
  • dedicated to establishing a caliphate in Libya
  • The US blamed Ansar al-Sharia for the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi that saw the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in 2012.
  • 2. Ansar al-Sharia
  • Misrata’s 235 militia brigades are collectively the most powerful single force in Libya, fighting through a six-month siege during the uprising.
  • They are equipped with heavy weapons, tanks and truck-launched rockets and have the power to be a decisive force in any struggle between Haftar and Islamist forces.
  • Many Misratan leaders back the Islamists in Congress, and Misratan brigades once formed a key part of the Libya Shield force in Tripoli.
  • allieggg on 12 Nov 14
     
    After the ousting of the Gaddafi regime the country pivoted into civil chaos. Because of the deficiency of structure and state autonomy, armed militias have become the dominant force in determining Libya's future governmental system. While the UN has internationally recognized the NTC as the interim government to ultimately turn the country into a democratic one, militias have taken things into their own hands tipping the country towards the brink of civil war. General Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign accusing congress of allowing terrorists flourish in Libya and vowed to wipe them out, gaining much support from the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. The opposition to Haftar insist that his attacks are aiming for a military coup. This article was helpful in highlighting the armed groups and dividing them by Pro-Haftar and Pro-Congress sections. 
kdancer

Turkish army enters Syria to rescue Isis-besieged sacred site - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...besieged-by-isis-10062269.html

ISIS syria

shared by kdancer on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • kdancer on 23 Feb 15
     
    The tomb of Suleyman Shah has been surrounded for months by militants belonging to the so-called "Islamic State", with just 40 guards holding onto the tiny pocket of Turkish sovereign land protected by international law. The operation represents the first land incursion by Turkish troops into Syria since the civil war began there nearly four years ago.
fcastro2

Main Syria-Jordan Crossing Under Insurgent Assault - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...g-under-insurgent-assault.html

crossing assault war ISIS jordan

shared by fcastro2 on 06 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • The main border crossing between Syria and Jordan remained closed and chaotic on Friday, with insurgents
  • wrangling for control two days after they seized and looted the crucial gateway.
  • he power struggle at the Nasib crossing, coupled with Syrian government airstrikes that hit nearby on Thursday, is the latest cross-border spillover from Syria’s four-year war, and it has led to new tensions between Jordan and Syria.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • witnesses said as many as 22 were being held either for ransom or as bargaining chips.
  • border would remain closed indefinitely until the authorities could guarantee security there.
  • The chaos on the border was a blow to Syria’s government, which lost the last crossing it had still controlled along the 230-mile border. But it could also be embarrassing for Jordan, the United States and other allies involved in a covert program to train insurgents who, they insist, are relatively nationalist and moderate.
  • admitted in an interview that some members of army-affiliated battalions had taken part in the looting, but he insisted that they had not coordinated with Nusra.
  • “I admit there was chaos and looting even by members of the Free Syrian Army, but we are working on returning some of the stolen goods and equipment,”
  • He said that factions linked to the Free Syrian Army had seized the border crossing without Nusra fighters, who rushed in later to take credit. Antigovernment activists in the area have said that a deal was made with Nusra to remain in the background.
  • Nusra and Free Syrian Army groups were controlling different parts of the complex, with a Free Syrian Army group called the Southern Falcons objecting to Nusra’s efforts to seize control of the crossing and its spoils. He said a Nusra fighter told him they were holding 22 drivers, not for ransom, but as a way to put pressure on the Free Syrian Army “to let Nusra run the whole place.
  • fcastro2 on 06 Apr 15
     
    A Syrian and Jordan border crossing has now been closed due to tensions between the "freedom fighters" and other similar groups. 
fcastro2

Syrian aircraft bomb area near captured Jordan crossing | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...a-jordan-idUSKBN0MT0RY20150402

jordan crossing ISIS syria war

shared by fcastro2 on 06 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Syrian military aircraft bombed areas close to its main crossing into Jordan on Thursday, witnesses and a group monitoring the conflict said, hours after insurgents had captured the border post
  • Insurgents fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad said they had seized the Nasib crossing in southern Syria late on Wednesday, putting most of 370-km (230-mile) border area stretching up to Israel in the hands of the rebels
  • weaken the regime's hold in the south and to increase the areas under our control
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • he al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front also said it had captured the crossing but rival rebels denied this and accused them of looting after the crossing fell into rebel hands.
  • Jordan closed its side of the crossing on Wednesday. A Jordanian source said on Thursday the kingdom had stepped up security and redeployed some troops to the border
  • The Syrian army, which accuses the staunch U.S. ally of harboring rebels on its soil, said the kingdom had deployed its troops inside the crossing after the rebels took control. Amman denies providing training and arms for the insurgents
  • ordan has pressured rebels in the past not to overrun the Nasib crossing so the highway could stay open to trade and traffic with Damascus
  • Nasib, one of Syria's last official border crossings, is now crucial for importing goods into a country hit hard by Western sanctions
  • fcastro2 on 06 Apr 15
     
    Tensions are rising even higher as the Syrian government take actions to regain the crossing to Jordan. This crossing was lost to the rebels not long ago and has closed an important crossing. 
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...factional-chaos-it-should-come

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
  • he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
  • In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
  • In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
  • The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
  • In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
wmulnea

Strife in Libya Could Presage Long Civil War - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...libyan-unrest.html

shared by wmulnea on 21 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Salah Badi, an ultraconservative Islamist and former lawmaker from the coastal city of Misurata.
  • Mr. Badi’s assault on Libya’s main international airport has now drawn the country’s fractious militias, tribes and towns into a single national conflagration that threatens to become a prolonged civil war. Both sides see the fight as part of a larger regional struggle, fraught with the risks of a return to repressive authoritarianism or a slide toward Islamist extremism.
  • the violence threatens to turn Libya into a pocket of chaos destabilizing North Africa for years to come.
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • Ansar al-Shariah, the hard-line Islamist group involved in the assault on the American diplomatic Mission in Benghazi in 2012
  • Their opponents, including the militias stocked with former Qaddafi soldiers
  • The ideological differences are blurry at best: both sides publicly profess a similar conservative but democratic vision.
  • an escalating war among its patchwork of rival cities and tribes.
  • Motorists wait in lines stretching more than three miles at shuttered gas stations, waiting for them to open. Food prices are soaring, uncollected garbage is piling up in the streets and bicycles, once unheard-of, are increasingly common.
  • Tripoli, the capital and the main prize, has become a battleground
  • The fighting has destroyed the airport
  • Constant shelling between rival militias has leveled blocks
  • Storage tanks holding about 25 million gallons of fuel have burned unchecked for a month
  • with daily blackouts sometimes lasting more than 12 hours.
  • many Libyans despaired of any resolution
  • In Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, the fighting has closed both its airport and seaport, strangling the city.
  • the rush toward war is also lifting the fortunes of the Islamist extremists of Ansar al-Shariah, the Benghazi militant group.
  • The United Nations, the United States and the other Western powers have withdrawn their diplomats and closed their missions
  • “We cannot care more than you do,” the British ambassador, Michael Aron, wrote
  • Until now, a rough balance of power among local brigades had preserved a kind of equilibrium, if not stability
  • the transitional government scarcely existed outside of the luxury hotels where its officials gathered, no other force was strong enough to dominate. No single interest divided the competing cities and factions.
  • But that semblance of unity is now in tatters, and with it the hope that nonviolent negotiations might settle the competition for power and, implicitly, Libya’s oil.
  • In May, a renegade former general, Khalifa Hifter, declared that he would seize power by force to purge Libya of Islamists, beginning in Benghazi. He vowed to eradicate the hard-line Islamists of Ansar al-Shariah, blamed for a long series of bombings and assassinations.
  • General Hifter also pledged to close the Parliament and arrest moderate Islamist members
  • he has mustered a small fleet of helicopters and warplanes that have bombed rival bases around Benghazi, a steep escalation of the violence.
  • moderate Islamists and other brigades who had distanced themselves from Ansar al-Shariah began closing ranks, welcoming the group into a newly formed council of “revolutionary” militias
  • a broad alliance of Benghazi militias that now includes Ansar al-Shariah issued a defiant statement denouncing relative moderates like the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. “We will not accept the project of democracy, secular parties, nor the parties that falsely claim the Islamic cause,”
  • the general’s blitz has now stalled, it polarized the country, drawing alarms from some cities and tribes but applause from others.
  • the loudest applause came from the western mountain town of Zintan, where local militia leaders had recruited hundreds of former Qaddafi soldiers into special brigades
  • the rival coastal city of Misurata, where militias have allied with the Islamists in political battles and jostled with the Zintanis for influence in the capital
  • the Misurata and Islamist militias developed a reputation for besieging government buildings and kidnapping high officials to try to pressure the Parliament. But in recent months the Zintanis and their anti-Islamist allies have stormed the Parliament and kidnapped senior lawmakers as well.
  • the newly elected Parliament, led at first, on a seniority basis, by a member supportive of Mr. Hifter, announced plans to convene in Tobruk, an eastern city under the general’s control.
  • About 30 members, most of them Islamists or Misuratans, refused to attend,
  • Tripoli’s backup airport, under the control of an Islamist militia, has cut off flights to Tobruk, even blocking a trip by the prime minister.
  • a spokesman for the old disbanded Parliament, favored by the Islamists and Misuratans, declared that it would reconvene in Tripoli
  • In Tobruk, a spokesman for the new Parliament declared that the Islamist- and Misuratan-allied militias were terrorists, suggesting that Libya might soon have two legislatures with competing armies
  • Each side has the support of competing satellite television networks financed and, often, broadcast from abroad, typically from Qatar for the Islamists and from the United Arab Emirates for their foes.
  • Hassan Tatanaki, a Libyan-born business mogul who owns one of the anti-Islamist satellite networks, speaking in an interview from an office in the Emirates. “We are in a state of war and this is no time for compromise.”
  • Fighters and tribes who fought one another during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi are now coming together on the same side of the new fight, especially with the Zintanis against the Islamists. Some former Qaddafi officers who had fled Libya are even coming back to take up arms again.
  • “It is not pro- or anti-Qaddafi any more — it is about Libya,” said a former Qaddafi officer in a military uniform
  • Beneath the battle against “extremists,” he said, was an even deeper, ethnic struggle: the tribes of Arab descent, like the Zintanis, against those of Berber, Circassian or Turkish ancestry, like the Misuratis. “The victory will be for the Arab tribes,”
  • andrea_hoertz on 21 Sep 14
     
    Article explains the civil war that is erupting in Libya. Islamist extremists are trying to take over the country and towns and tribes of Libya are choosing sides. Tripoli has been the biggest battle ground and its airport was destroyed.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
csosa14

"Inside Baghdad's Brutal Battle Against ISIS": In Chaos of Post-Invasion Iraq... - 0 views

www.democracynow.org/...ads_brutal_battle_against_isis

Baghdad battle chaos ISIS militia

shared by csosa14 on 24 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • csosa14 on 24 Mar 15
     
    Description of Baghdad's Battle against ISIS
  • csosa14 on 24 Mar 15
     
    Description of Baghdad's Battle against ISIS
  • csosa14 on 24 Mar 15
     
    Description of Baghdad's Battle against ISIS
sambofoster

A look at the rights of women in Arab countries - Middle East - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1.578635

shared by sambofoster on 27 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • sambofoster on 27 Jan 16
     
    From Jordan to the United Arab Emirates, a look at women's rights across the Arab world on the occasion of International Women's Day. Jordan Women can travel freely without permission from their husbands or male relatives. They hold public posts and female pilots, police officers and soldiers.
mportie

A roundup of ancient sites ISIS has destroyed - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...iraq-isis-heritage

ISIS syria war

shared by mportie on 27 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • mportie on 27 Jan 16
     
    A listing of the multiple sites ISIS has razed. Many of these sites hold significant cultural and historical heritage. ISIS has taken credit and even filmed their defacing of such sites to demonstrate their beliefs of intolerance.
joepouttu

Syria opposition holds 'positive' talks with UN envoy - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-35459323

Syria Opposition Politics UN negotiation

shared by joepouttu on 01 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • joepouttu on 01 Feb 16
     
    The main opposition group in Syria, the HNC, recently held what  they view as positive talks with the UN. It was in regards to humanitarian issues in Syria, and the group now awaits the Syrian government's response. 
mcooka

Education in Jordan - general overview | Jordan Times - 0 views

www.jordantimes.com/...dan-%E2%80%94-general-overview

education jordan overview program

shared by mcooka on 16 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • large majority of students attends public schools, often taught by poorly qualified teachers
  • Curricula, teaching and evaluation methods do not permit free dialogue or exploratory learning, and consequently do not open the doors to creative thinking and analysis.
  • “Imparting” knowledge is the dominant feature, which weakens the capacity to hold opposing or various viewpoints.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • n Jordan, there is an excessive use of lecturing and memorisation, with little emphasis on analysis of what is being memorised. It is well known that students in public schools are required to memorise endless facts and formulas from a dreary academic curriculum.
  • hile all new theories of language acquisition are based on meaningful communication through which students can acquire English as a second language without translation or focusing on grammatical principles and rules, “grammar translation method” is still the only popular method used in public schools and even at universities in Jordan.
  • Over the years, there has been much talk about reforming the education system in Jordan, but less action. Reform i
  • We need an education through which students are able to connect the facts they learn about to the real world, which helps them innovate, understand social responsibilities, ethics and values.
malshamm

Erdogan says U.S.-Russian Syria plan could benefit Assad - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...ded-from-Syria-ceasefire-.html

Syria politics war revolution

shared by malshamm on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • malshamm on 24 Feb 16
     
    the president of Turkey think holding thew fire in Syria could give Assad a rest to take a breath. also the president think Russia, USA and European union positions are negative and they not taking the Syrian crisis seriously.
blantonjack

U.S. Commandos Expand Anti-ISIS War into Libya - 1 views

www.usnews.com/...xpand-anti-isis-war-into-libya

Libya politics war America ISIS

shared by blantonjack on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 24 Feb 16
     
    U.S Commandos have long known that Libya will be a key element in the battle against ISIS. That is why members have been on the ground training militia and the Libyan government, so that they are able to better combat ISIS.The extremist network has established footholds around the world but none more important than in Libya, where over the last year it has found a source of income and supplies and a lifeboat if its hub in the Middle East collapses.It is crucial at this point that Libya get a democracy in order to firmly establish laws against the Islamic state, then Libyans may have a chance to keep hold of their country away from terrorist threat.
mpatel5

Egypt's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood condemns Sinai attacks - 5 views

www.reuters.com/...therhood-idUSKBN0IF08920141026

Muslim Brotherhood Sisi Egypt Sinai

shared by mpatel5 on 27 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The Muslim Brotherhood says it is a peaceful movement and has consistently denied links to Islamist militant attacks against security forces, which have increased since the movement was removed from power.
  • "The Muslim Brotherhood believes the shedding of blood of any Egyptian is forbidden. The group holds the junta and its leaders responsible for the continued failure in the security, economic and social fields, as experienced by all the people, especially the people of the Sinai," the statement said.
  • kristaf on 27 Oct 14
     
    The Muslim Brotherhood responds to the Sinai attack. The Brotherhood states that the attacks are linked to the islamist militants. The Muslim Brotherhood "says it is a peaceful movement...believes that shedding blood of any Egyptian is forbidden." 
  • ...1 more comment...
  • kristaf on 02 Nov 14
     
    The Muslim Brotherhood responds to the Sinai attack. The Brotherhood states that the attacks are linked to the islamist militants. The Muslim Brotherhood "says it is a peaceful movement...believes that shedding blood of any Egyptian is forbidden." 
  • kristaf on 02 Nov 14
     
    The Muslim Brotherhood responds to the Sinai attack. The Brotherhood states that the attacks are linked to the islamist militants. The Muslim Brotherhood "says it is a peaceful movement...believes that shedding blood of any Egyptian is forbidden."
  • zackellogg on 11 Nov 14
     
    On October 25th, 33 security personnel were killed in Sinai by Islamist militants. According to this article, President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi was responsible for the security failures that resulted in the deaths. Sisi was quick to blame the Muslim Brotherhood for the attack, despite the Brotherhoods insistent denial.
eyadalhasan

The US is restoring military aid to Egypt that its withheld since 2013 - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/e-military-aid-to-egypt-2015-3

''WhiteHouse'' ''Egypt'' ''Militaryaid''

shared by eyadalhasan on 02 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • eyadalhasan on 02 Mar 16
     
    President Barack Obama asked the US Congress for $1.3 billion per year in military aid for Egypt and said he would lift holds on aircraft, missiles and tanks for Cairo in place since October 2013, the White House said in a statement.
eyadalhasan

Christians are disappearing from the Middle East - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Al Shemani Christians middle east

shared by eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16
     
    Al Shemani is one of the hundreds of thousands of Christians forced to leave his country because of ISIS. "They took our areas, our house, the places that we used to hold so dear," al Shemani said. Parishioners surround him. They are crossing themselves, singing and praying.
hwilson3

Time to Hold the Media to Account for Islamophobia | Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/...s-and-the-media_b_1682041.html

#media #islamophobia #middleeast #islam

shared by hwilson3 on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • hwilson3 on 03 Mar 16
     
    This article takes a look at how the media- particularly in Western countries- has affected what is commonly known as islamophobia. Many people in America has strong prejudices against people who identify with the Islamic faith, and much of this is because they only hear negative attitudes about them from news media outlets. One interesting thing that I found about this article was the fact that it related these trends in media coverage to 9/11
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